[work in progress]
Missionary endeavours
The Church Missionary Society (CMS) sent their first workers, Gobat and Kugler, to Ethiopia in 1830. A few years later, Krapf and Isenberg engaged in Bible translation and literature production. However, the CMS workers did not publish any hymnal in a language spoken in today’s Ethiopia since they had to leave the country before a worshipping community had been founded.
It appears that the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (alias London Jews Society) did not leave any new hymns behind either, although there were thousands of followers at some time.
The Bible Churchmen’s Missionary Society (a conservative spin-off of the CMS) sent Alfred Buxton to Ethiopia, who took an affirmative approach towards the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
- A group of well-educated Orthodox believers who were attracted to Buxton’s Bible studies formed a ministry fellowship within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church called Särawitä Krəstos mahbär. In 1955/56, they published the hymnal Mäzmurä bǝrhan, which combined new lyrics with traditional Orthodox melodies.
Other BCMS workers were involved in Bible translation and Christian literature work (e.g. David Stokes and Colin Maunsell).
Chaplancies in Addis Ababa
After World War I, the number of British in Ethiopia increased. The following Reverends served the English-speaking St Matthew’s congregation in Addis Ababa during the first three decades and were also active in other ministries such as Bible translation:
- Ethelstan Cheese (1926‒28)
- Austen Frederic Matthews (1928‒54)
Anglicans in western Ethiopia
After the Sudanese government introduced Shari’a law in southern Sudan in 1983, a civil war ensued. Hundreds of thousands crossed the border to the Gambella Region in Ethiopia. After requests from southern Sudan and discussions with the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church it was decided in the 1990s that the Anglican Church should undertake spiritual work in the Gambella Region.
There are now dozens of Anglican congregations in the Gambella Region. Many refugees who entered Ethiopia during the 1980s/1990s returned to South Sudan (e.g. the Dinka) and gave their church buildings to locals who had joined the Anglicans. Some of the Anglican congregations engaged in cross-cultural mission in the Gambella Region, e.g. to the Mezhenger and Opo people groups.
Documentation
recorded in 2007:
recorded in 2014:
Cross-references
Further reading
(1) Internet resources
» Brief history of St Matthew’s in Addis Ababa (2015; Internet Archive)
» Follow St Matthew’s congregation on Facebook
(2) Typescripts and printed publications
Langdon, Philippa. “Padre Matthew”. Unpublished typescript in the files of St Matthew’s Anglican Church, Addis Ababa.
LeMarquand, Grant. “Anglicans in the Horn of Africa: From Missionaries and Chaplains to a Missionary Church”, in The Oxford History of Anglicanism; vol. 5: Global Anglicanism, c. 1910‒2000. ed. W. L. Sachs, p. 196‒210. Oxford, etc.: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Padwick, Constance E. “Unpredictable: Impressions of the Life and Work of John Ethelstan Cheese”, The Muslim World 57, no. 4 (1967): 265-276. [View online; subscription barrier]